


with my eyes open

by whereJIJisalive



Category: Torchwood
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-23
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-15 22:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/854571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whereJIJisalive/pseuds/whereJIJisalive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Ianto meets Jack for the first time at a party. Jack intrigues him, but Ianto's mind is occupied elsewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

Ianto looked towards Lisa, who was standing and talking to another man on the other side of the room. How he wished he had never taken her to this party. Everything just felt wrong. Felt like she didn't even want to be there with him. She had been ignoring him the whole evening, as if he had done something wrong. 

Maybe he had. Maybe he had been absent. Quiet. Maybe his heart hadn't been in it. But that was a realization he wasn't ready to acknowledge. Because that would mean that their relationship had lost its magic. That it was pointless to continue. But he still loved her, and he always would. He wasn't ready to acknowledge defeat. Not yet.

Suddenly, the door slammed open, momentarily disturbing the atmosphere in the small flat filled with some of his closest friends. A new face burst in, walking straight towards Ianto's friend Kevin, whose flat they were in. The man shook Kevin's hand familiarly, smiling the most radiant, handsome smile Ianto had ever seen. He found himself somehow unable to breathe for the strangest moment. He could feel a tingle start in his stomach and move up towards his cheeks, warming them, as he looked at the stranger. He was fairly sure that he was blushing, something he knew from experience was extremely visible on his pale skin. 

Without really noticing, he had caught the stranger's eye, and he was now looking at Ianto with a lascivious smile and a knowing look in his eyes. Ianto could feel his face heat up further, and promptly got up to escape the man's eyes and get some fresh air. Before he left, he turned around to see if he could catch Lisa's eye. She was engrossed in conversation with Kevin's best friend, Ewan. He sighed, leaving the room for the relative calm of the porch outside.

He had barely been standing there for two minutes before the door opened again, and the stranger stepped out, the same breathtaking smile on his face, slightly dimmed in the poor lighting. He looked positively gorgeous, a thought which took Ianto yet again by surprise.

"Jack Harkness." The man said without preamble, holding his hand up for him to shake.

"Um, Jones," Ianto said, falling into his habit of introducing himself with his surname first. "Ianto Jones."

"Nice to meet you, Jones, Ianto Jones," Jack said, holding on to his hand a few moments too long. "What brings you here?"

Ianto half-chuckled at the beginnings of a pickup-line. He hesitated for a while before responding. "I'm here with my girlfriend."

"Oh," Jack said, and looked out into the night. "And where is she?" he asked, turning back towards Ianto.

"Probably flirting with Ewan," he answered truthfully.

"Right," Jack said, quickly giving up any pretense of being sad for him. "I guess there's no one to blame you for standing here and flirting a little with me then?" He winked.

This time Ianto did chuckle, a genuine delighted reaction mixed with nervous deflection. "I don't think that's going to lead to much, but by all means, go ahead."

"Oh, you're straight? So is spaghetti until it gets hot."

Ianto burst out laughing. "That's a rubbish pickup-line."

"Oh come on. Making you laugh is half the victory," Jack said, smiling warmly.

"Maybe," Ianto said, his burst of mirth all but gone. Without asking him permission, his thoughts slowly returned to Lisa, all their troubles, and whether or not their relationship was hopeless.

There was a lull in their interaction for a while, before Jack suddenly sighed and fixed him with a look. "You want to tell me about it?"

"What, no more pickup-lines?"

"There's always more where that came from," Jack smiled, before he turned serious. "But I'm getting the feeling you've got something else on your mind. That girlfriend of yours?"

Ianto sighed. "Yeah. I mean, I love her. We've been together since college. We've been so happy together, but lately… It's like she hasn't had any interest in me. And maybe… I don't know. Maybe I've neglected her too."

Jack looked sympathetically at him. "Those things happen. God, it's happened to me often enough. Those relationships never ended good for me. You're in a relationship for a reason, and maybe it helps you in some way, but then that relationship has run its course." Jack smiled, sadly. "I don't know, perhaps it's different for you."

Ianto smiled incredulously. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you about this. I don't know you."

"People tell me I've got that kind of a face," he said, winking.

"Did they ever tell you you're an incorrigible flirt?"

"All the time."

Ianto shook his head, smiling. "Right."

A tense sort of silence settled between them, the atmosphere changing suddenly. Ianto wasn't entirely sure who made the first move, but as he was standing face to face with Jack, his hand on the other man's chest and their eyes making an unbreakable connection, he didn't actually care. Ianto felt his hand slide up towards Jack's cheek, cupping his face tenderly. Some unknown, intangible force was driving him further, further away from Lisa, further away from everything he thought he knew about his sexuality. 

He was almost expecting Jack to protest, back away, or ask him what the hell he was doing, but for some reason he didn't. He had almost gone through with kissing the other man, when an image of Lisa, kissing Ewan, came unbidden into his mind, and he jerked back. God. He didn't want to be the cheating boyfriend any more than he wanted her to be the cheating girlfriend. "I-I should go," he said, surprised at the shakiness in his voice, before he ran back into the house in search of his girlfriend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little later than expected, but at least now it's finished! Let me know what you think?

Two months after that party Ianto was finally moving into his new flat in Cardiff. After escaping Jack he had re-entered the party only to see Lisa engrossed in a flirting match between her and Ewan, laughing and winking and basically one millimeter away from kissing the man. Despite Ianto's previous all too similar situation, he had been extremely hurt. It wasn't like all their friends hadn't been able to see either. He had ultimately left without her, and that night ended up being one of the last ones of their relationship.

After the breakup he couch-surfed at some friends' houses, gave up his job in London to move to Cardiff, and lived with one of this best and oldest friends, Toshiko, in Cardiff while he was waiting to move into his new flat. 

It had been, without a doubt, the worst breakup of his life. However, he knew it was the right thing to do. Ironically, both Jack and Ewan had helped him see that.

 TW

A week after moving in he was going in for yet another job interview, this time at an office in Splott. It wasn't exactly his first choice, but his savings were running thin and now when he'd moved out of Tosh's flat he was in desperate need of a steady income. What he hadn't expected was seeing Jack at the office.

”My, my, Mr Jones, welcome,” Jack said warmly, and Ianto found himself wanting to smile despite of himself. 

”Jack,” he said lamely, ashamed to admit that he didn’t even remember the other man’s surname. 

”Harkness,” he supplied helpfully.

”Mr Harkness,” Ianto corrected himself, determined to conduct the interview professionally. 

Jack looked amusedly at him, asking him to sit.

"Thank you," Ianto mumbled, sitting down opposite Jack.

The next twenty minutes were mostly spent on Ianto going through some papers and work-related conditions, but somehow it was hard to focus with Jack sitting there throwing in an innuendo every two minutes and staring at him openly when they were silent. Ianto's cheeks heated up and he was sure he was perspiring more than he'd done when he was a teenager. It was embarrassing. Incapacitating. Something he'd have to get used to if he was going to work with Jack.  

He had to admit to himself that he was very attracted to Jack, but for some reason that didn’t make him feel uncomfortable as he had first thought it would. Maybe his sexual orientation being shaken up a bit wasn’t a bad thing after all. Maybe it just marked the beginning of a new chapter of his life.

"To be honest with you," Jack said towards the end of the interview. "I'm really new here."

Ianto's eyebrows shot to the roof. "Really?"

"Yeah. I used to be a cop, back in Illinois, and I loved it. The action of it, the adrenaline pumping through your veins. It was totally my thing."

"What happened?" Ianto asked, thinking that if he was so happy something must have happened to make Jack change his life so drastically.

"Got shot in the knee. Lots of surgery to get it functional." Jack's expression was solemn. "But once your knee is shot to hell, even if they make you walk again, you can't be a cop."

Ianto nodded, curious. "So what did you do?"

"I went back to college. Got a degree in business," Jack said, and his brilliant smile was back in place. It was the look he got just before he said something sexy. Ianto couldn't believe he knew him well enough to know that.

"You see, I'd never worked in an office before. It was all kind of exotic to me. Exciting. You know, office romances, photocopying your butt," he winked. "But I've felt kind of let down on that front ever since I started here."

"Oh, really?" Ianto asked, a smile spreading on his lips as well.

"But it seems like that might be looking up," he said, licking his lips before he pushed another envelope towards Ianto. 

Ianto did his best to open it without losing eye contact with the other man, but eventually had to look down to read what it was. A contract. "I got the job?" he asked reverently.

"Under one condition," Jack said seriously.

"What's that?" Ianto asked, suddenly worried.

"You have to promise not to file any complaints for sexual harassment."

"I don't think we're going to have a problem," Ianto replied darkly.

The look of desire in Jack's eyes nearly took his breath away.


End file.
